nine bars
Q Grading: Learning coffees common
language isnt just for roasters
Q grading: (From left) Martha Lucia Bonilla Paniagua, Gilberto Parra and Oriana Hernandez Alcalde cup coffees during the
Q Grading exam in Colombia as John Richard Hernandez monitors them.
P
rofessionals who cup coffee every day often
fall into a common language with others in the cupping
room. That language extends to cupping terminology,
which is often peppered with vocabulary pulled from the SCAA
flavor wheel. References to everyday foodscandy, for exam-
pleare commonly used to describe a coffees flavor. But while
those comparisons may ring true to your colleagues, they wont
necessarily resonate in the coffee world outside of your doors,
your town and especially your country. Apple Jolly Rancher
doesnt really translate when youre at origin, says Gabe Boscana,
quality control specialist for Gimme! Coffee in Ithaca, N.Y. But if
you can find a common language, everyones going to understand
what youre saying.
Creating that common language is just one of the aims of
the Coffee Quality Institute (CQI), a nonprofit organization
working internationally to improve coffee quality and the lives
of the people who produce it through its Q Coffee System and
Q Grader Program. More than 600 coffee professionals have
46 Fresh Cup Magazine >> freshcup.com
BY chris ryan
PHOTOS COURTESY OF SUSTAINABLE HARVEST
passed a rigorous test to become Licensed Q Graders, helping to
cement an educational standard that improves the process for
all sides of the supply chain.
The story of Q
CQI is a nonprofit educational foundation whose parent cor-
poration is the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA).
Among CQIs programs is the Q Coffee System, a grading format
for evaluating coffee. The system uses a third party to verify
a coffees quality, and those third-party cuppers are generated
from another of CQIs arms, the Q Grader Program. Q Grading
is a rigorous testing and certification program that is the first
comprehensive professional accreditation for coffee graders and
cuppers. Those who pass the test become Licensed Q Graders. The
Q system creates a common language for quality, giving buyers
and sellers a more objective way of communicating and providing
feedback to producers.
The Q Coffee System started in Central America (Guatemala and
continued on page 48
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Costa Rica) before expanding down to South America (Colombia
and Peru). The program then went to East Africa (Ethiopia,
Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda) and Asia (Indonesia and Japan).
Essentially we at CQI have been pushing this so that we can have
a large number of origins that have Q Certified coffee, says Ted
Lingle, CQIs executive director. The first step was to build the
product base. Part of building that product base was using the Q
System to grade growers coffees and offer them feedback on how
to improve them. Once a coffees graded, whether it meets the Q
Certification criteria or not, you still end up issuing a report, says
Lingle. And so it provides direct feedback to the people involved,
whether or not their coffee qualifies in terms of quote-unquote
48 Fresh Cup Magazine >> freshcup.com
specialty coffee. And if not, why not? It really is providing very
valuable feedback to the producers.
License to grade
To participate in that feedback process, participants must have
the golden ticket known as the Q License. As of press time there
are 627 Licensed Q Graders worldwide, and that number is grow-
ing fast; there were 395 licenses issued as of August 2008. The
largest concentration of Q Graders is in Colombia, which Lingle
says was achieved in part with a USAID Colombia granta critical
funding component early in CQIs development.
To earn Q Certification, cuppers must pass a grueling, multi-
day exam containing 22 sections on sub-
jects such as green grading, roast identifi-
cation, cupping, sensory skills and trian-
gulation. There are very few people that
pass all the tests the first time that they
take them, says Lingle, adding that sen-
sory skills and triangulation usually give
franklin moNtenegro of Ecuador
takes the triangulation section of the Q
exam. A red cover is placed over the light
so that cuppers cannot see a difference in
the color of each cup of coffee.
test-takers the most trouble. The sensory
skills test requires the student to take dif-
ferent solutions of sweet, salt and sour,
and identify them both by themselves and
when theyre present in a mixture. The tri-
angulation test asks the cupper to sample
three cups of coffeetwo are the same,
one is differentand identify the odd one
out. Phuong Tran, owner of Lava Java
coffeehouse in Ridgefield, Wash., became
certified in March, and she attributes her
passing grade to years of industry expe-
rience. If I had never cupped before, I
probably wouldnt have passed the course,
she says. All the stuff that Ive done over the years really, really
helped me.
Because of the difficulty of the course, some industry mem-
bers have suggested that there be Q Grader preparatory classes.
Because Q Grading is in a control group format that throws out
the high and low test scores so that scores must fall within the
average for students to pass, having a disparity of skills in a Q
Grader exam can penalize higher-scoring testers. I would like
there to be some kind of qualification for pre-Q training so that
people are at the same level when they come into that class,
says Tracy Allen, CEO of Brewed Behavior, who has passed the Q
Certification twice. A high tide will raise everybody.
In February, the first such program
was held at California roaster Gavina
Gourmet Coffee. The two-day training
was for members of the Pacific Coast
Coffee Association who wanted to take the
Q Grader test. The classes were not affili-
ated with CQI, and no official preparatory
classes are currently offered.
control manager Isabel Cerqueda Garcia says she relies regular-
ly on the lessons she learned when she became Q Certified.
Without a doubt it helps every single day, she says (in Spanish,
with Gilmer translating). During harvest time we have producers
in the Oaxaca office all the time to learn how to cup and to learn
how to taste their coffees, and were teaching them skills that we
learned in the Q Grader course. And CQIs goal of creating a com-
mon language and international standard is becoming more real-
istic as the program progresses: Lingle said he recently received
word that Brazils Ministry of Agriculture is adopting the Q Coffee
System as the official standard in Brazil.
continued on page 51

Pu tt i n g th e Q to u s e
There are now about 75 Q Graders in the
United States, from roasters and importers
to caf owners, trainers and others. Right
now its essentially people who want to
progress in their coffee career and get into
some type of training, says Lingle. Our
emphasis has been on training cuppers at
origin to help coffee growers. But there has
been the byproduct of a number of individ-
uals, in not just the United States but also
in Japan, who really view it as a valuable
professional credential.
Sustainable Harvest Coffee Importers in
Portland, Ore., places a premium on the
certification, with nine employees38 per-
cent of its companybeing Q Certified. Its
good for our customers to see that we have
some new Certified Q Graders in the compa-
ny, says Katie Gilmer, Sustainable Harvests
communications manager, who passed the
exam in March. Tran wanted to add the cre-
dential to validate the barista training she
does both at Lava Java and through Allens
Brewed Behavior. I can now feel confident
about saying I can train people because I
went through this whole series of tests and I
passed it, and I have credentials to talk about
coffee or tell you what I taste.
Though the program has branched out, it
still performs its chief duty of providing a
standard at coffees source. At Sustainable
Harvests Oaxaca, Mexico, office, quality

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Makin g a qual i ty to Guatemala, I want to

make sure that my judg-
i mpac t
ing and how Im scoring
Though the Q Grader coffee is totally calibrated
exam has rightly earned to the standard because
the reputation of being this isnt just coffee, its
difficult to pass, Lingle peoples lives, he says.
says the test needs to set Your grading and your
a high standard because cupping and your scor-
of the global impact Q ing is going to determine
Graders can make. A whether that coffee gets
person who cups coffee a specific price or not.
and then in effect gives While the Q system
it a score is indirectly directly impacts coffee
influencing the value of farmers lives, it also res-
that coffee in the mar- onates with U.S. retailers,
ketplace, he says. And and the cycle of educa-
so that means that indi- isabel cerqueda garcia of Sustainable Harvests Oaxaca, Mexico, office tion will continue to have
vidual has a really tre- cups the calibration sample that testers discuss before cupping the rest of an effect on specialty
mendous responsibility the table during the Q exam. coffee culture here. The
for the coffee grower. We wanted to ensure that the people more we educate people, and bring them up to these cupping
that we say are good cuppers, licensed Q Graders, have the req- certifications and this common language, and then they go out
uisite skills to in effect make these kinds of judgments. Boscana and do the same locally, the industry will rise, Allen says. You
of Gimme! Coffee says he wanted to be as educated as possible cant take education back once its out there. Once its out there,
before making decisions that impact coffee growers. If Im sent its out there.

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